


under ice

by veilfire



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adoribull Prompt Sunday, Character Study, Established Relationship, M/M, Nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 22:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5108399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veilfire/pseuds/veilfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some scents have no business making their way into Orlais.</p>
            </blockquote>





	under ice

**Author's Note:**

> [distractionpie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie) prompted me with _forgetting_ on [tumblr](http://adoribullness.tumblr.com/). it got away from me, whoops.  
>   
> [neomeruru](http://archiveofourown.org/users/neomeruru/pseuds/neomeruru) did a great job on beta, thank you so much, bb! all remaining mistakes are my own, i did fiddle a lot with this story after she was through with it.

Surprisingly enough, winter isn’t the season when Dorian is the most miserable. True, winters in the Frostbacks are cold enough to snap branches, and Dorian burns through wood and heating runes quicker than he fills sheets of parchment with lines and lines of research, but winter also means calm seas and Dwarven Merchants’ Guild caravans arriving with supplies every three weeks, and therefore: news from home. The stack of letters received from Mae at the end of Firstfall, after two and a half months of silence, was three inches high. His heart fluttered like a sparrow in a cage when he opened the first.

(Last year, the first winter letter had informed him of Felix’s passing. This year, Mae had written of her vineyards close to his old circle in Vyrantium, of her plans to renovate her southernmost villa, of nothing of importance. He smiled a fair bit, reading her words. He cried even more.)

*

The rarely-used stairs leading from the battlements down to the lower courtyard are slippery with ice. It doesn’t stop Dorian. In the morning, when he’d been hurrying for his semi-weekly tutoring session for the apprentices that show promise with necromancy, he had chosen the route via the ramparts. He certainly isn’t repeating this mistake on his way back. The wind bit off _chunks_ of his flesh in the morning. Chunks. They need a practice space closer to the keep, and Dorian will talk to Lavellan about it as soon as he safely sets foot on solid ground at the base of the stairs. At least, he tells himself, one gloved hand firm on the railing, if he goes down, it won’t be with the soul-shattering clamor of iron armor hitting stone, like the templar who'd slipped here yesterday. On the other hand, with the caravan having arrived only this morning, the courtyard is much more crowded than usual, and his hypothetical fall would be witnessed by far too many people. Dorian shudders at the mere thought, but his feet are as sure on the ice as one could reasonably expect from a Tevinter in the South.

He doesn’t slip, and when he straightens after dusting snow from his gloves and adjusting his collar, he sees Bonny Sims waving him over. “No,” he calls from across the courtyard, but makes his way to her stall nonetheless. He finds he likes Bonny Sims quite a lot. “I shall not be persuaded, no matter your insistence. The design of that thing is dreadful, and yellow has never been my color. However improbable, it does make my complexion look ghastly; I cannot be seen in it.”

She laughs. “Oh, don’t you doubt, I will wear you down. Yellow is absolutely your color, and the design is not dreadful. It is _à la mode_.”

“Orlesian mode, perhaps,” Dorian huffs, and Bonny Sims laughs again. Under her high collar, she may even be showing her teeth. Dorian doesn’t suppose he will ever know.

“That’s not why I called you here, though.” She has something in her palm, small and glossy and brown. A jar, made of dark glass. The smile falters on his lips. Life has taught Dorian to be wary of unknown substances in opaque containers, but the idea that Bonny Sims, of all people, would want to harm him seems ludicrous.

Still, he hesitates. 

She waits with her hand outstretched, patient and calm, until Dorian has no choice but to act. “What’s in there?” he asks, curling his fingers into a fist by his side to stop them from hovering awkwardly over her hand.

“Take it and see,” she says. “It’s for you.”

“A present, then? Why, madame, I know I am worthy of all the jewels the lesser Empire can possibly throw at me, but you yourself—you shouldn’t have bothered.” But he can’t deny himself any longer.

He plucks the jar from her fingers and unscrews the lid. Nothing explodes. Nothing seems out of ordinary. He lifts it to his nose. The smell that hits him— the smell—

_Their city residence in Qarinus, the windows of his bedroom overlooking the spice market. Green and red and green again, leagues and leagues of chili fields, slaves working on his family’s field, on their neighbors’ fields, their backs bent under the hot, unforgiving sun._

He firmly screws the lid back on.

“I can’t take it.”

If she’s surprised, she hides it well. “But why?” she asks. “I wanted to thank you for introducing me to the Petiliuses. It has proven to be... most beneficial for my business. A little something from their first shipment seemed an appropriate token of my gratitude.” 

In Tevinter, a jar of powdered chili of this size would cost less than a slave of average build and health. Here in the South— A village, perhaps. Dorian isn’t sure. The value of the gift, though not inconsiderable, is not the reason why he is turning it down. Expensive gifts don’t make Dorian uncomfortable.

The reminder of Tevinter’s practices does.

“I thought you would like it,” Bonny Sims adds.

He does. 

Not at all.

Too much.

All lies, and all truth somehow. Dorian’s fingers close around the jar, and Dorian bows, as elegantly as his fur-lined coat allows him. “Forgive me,” he says. “I am being unbearably impolite; what must you think of me now. I’m glad to hear your business is doing well. Nobody deserves good fortune as much as you.” He forces his lips to form a smile once more, then bows again, even lower, and takes her hand in his to kiss the air above the white, soft, smooth suede of her glove. “It _is_ a very thoughtful gift. I... thank you. You surprised me.”

“I'd hoped to,” Bonny Sims says, and bids him farewell.

*

Dorian foregoes the Keep entirely. His talk with Lavellan will have to wait, and picking jam for Sera will have to wait, too. Instead of charming the staff, he calls for lunch to be brought to his room where the curtains are drawn. Dorian appreciates neither the cold nor the the sun glinting off the snow, and as a rule, darkness does him a world of good — but not now. It can’t obscure the jar. Dorian had put it on the vanity, among his oils and creams, and yet, in the orange light of fire stoked too high, it almost glows. 

Dorian simultaneously wants to smash it against the wall and to cradle it against his ribcage, to feel the warmth of his homeland seep into his bones through the thick glass. He settles for unscrewing the lid again and breathing, breathing deep.

The smell is sharper in his room. His memories gain edges. The colors under his eyelids get more vibrant, and the taste of spices explodes on his tongue like a spell gone wrong.

( _Damien shouldn’t be pursuing necromancy just because Fiona needs it_ , Dorian thinks, quite absurdly. _The boy’s heart clearly lies with the fire_.) 

The jar wobbles dangerously when Dorian puts it back. He doesn’t make a move to catch it, but it stills, not a pinch spilled. Dorian turns away. He sits down on the rug by the bed, where the smell is dulled, mixed with dust. He puts his head in his hands.

When he pulls them away, his lunch has arrived, and with it, the Bull. The first words out of his mouth are “Chili! Where’d you get it?” and Dorian feels his face fall, betraying his discomposure. The Bull would have noticed his state anyway, but Dorian likes his appearances intact. 

The Bull settles the tray on Dorian’s bed. “What’s wrong?” he asks, voice low and sure and concerned.

“Nothing,” Dorian snaps. Like a lash, but missing by a mile. The Bull isn’t perturbed by his outburst. He rarely is. 

“It’s for cooking, Dorian. It'll go stale in the open.” He puts the lid back on the jar.

It shouldn’t irritate Dorian so much as it does. “I can’t cook.”

“Give it to the cooks.”

“Whatever would they do with it, I wonder.”

It makes the Bull snort. “After they licked it? Throw it all away and dust their hands.”

Unique talent, that. To make Dorian’s irritation ebb away so quickly. “Dusting may not be enough. We should warn them against touching sensitive body parts before scrubbing their hands clean.”

“I didn’t want that image in my head, Dorian,” the Bull says. “That hurt.” He sits on the bed, his leg a warm line along Dorian’s side, his knee right there to put one’s head on. A minuscule temptation. Dorian succumbs to it right away. 

The Bull’s pants are dirty and smell of horses and hay. His fingers are strong where they press into Dorian’s skull, and when he says Dorian’s name again, his voice is so soft Dorian knows it must be for his sake. To let him pretend he didn’t hear anything. He is tempted to.

The Bull’s fingers move from Dorian’s skull to his neck to his shoulders, finding knots under Dorian’s skin with no trouble at all. Dorian’s not surprised it loosens his tongue more than his trapezii. He points with his chin towards the vanity and the jar. “Some scents have no business making their way into Orlais. They stir memories better left undisturbed.” 

The Bull hums, a non-committal, poignant sound. Dorian isn’t the only one from the North, here. He should try to remember that more often. He sends a flare of magic through his hand, palm to finger to finger to thumb, and reaches for the Bull’s left knee. 

They find a rhythm together, Dorian’s fingers on the Bull’s body, the Bull’s on his. A quiet calm. Dorian’s words run wild in his throat. 

“It has been three years since I crossed Tevinter's border, and I still can distinguish between a slave and a soporati at a glance, but if I passed— If I could pass Felix on the street once again, I think I wouldn’t recognize him. Maybe I wouldn’t recognize Mother, either. Or Livia. Though her face is the most distinctive.” 

“Not as distinctive as mine, I bet," the Bull says, and Dorian snorts. 

The Bull’s face— it is something. Dorian can’t imagine he will ever forget its angles. 

With no name for this thing between them, it’s the least he can hope for. 

“I remember the rain,” the Bull says. “On Seheron. Days and days of downpour, no break, no fucking end. Only rain.”

Much like the eastern Imperium, Seheron sees two seasons: rainy and dry. Dorian knows it, and he knows what the Bull is trying to do. He squeezes the knee under his palm. “You don’t have to—”

The Bull’s hands still, but they stay on Dorian’s shoulders, heavy like anchors.

To what? _To lie to make me feel better_ , a voice inside Dorian says. It sounds like Halward. Dorian dismisses it, but not with ease. _To pour your heart out to me_. That’s purely Dorian, and Dorian hates it, and he hates himself for even thinking it. _To put up with me_. 

The Bull, doing just that, bears the silence until it softens and settles between them like a blanket that thinned with use, every fold just a few threads of wool. To continue would be to put the blanket on fire, and Dorian’s already done that once, in far more pleasurable circumstances. It just wouldn’t compare. 

A defeat, then, but one that doesn’t feel like losing. Dorian tries to hide it in the crane of his neck nonetheless, but the motion only brings his mouth closer to the Bull, putting the Bull’s knuckles within a kissing distance. It _is_ a stretch, but when hasn’t it been a stretch?

The Bull’s skin is rough under Dorian’s lips. The Bull’s lips are dry and hot on Dorian’s skin when the Bull kisses him back—on the nape, and wherever he can reach from there. The corner of the Bull’s mouth keeps turning, and turning, and turning up in a smile, until the Bull pulls back to go and draw the curtains open. 

Sunbeams glimmer, oddly silver against the snow. Dorian squints his eyes. He breathes in, he breathes out. Twice. Then he opens his eyes again. “Whatever we make with it, it won’t taste like— It won’t taste the same,” he says. He so likes to have the last word. 

On the vanity, a jar among many other jars. Indistinguishable.

“What does it matter?” the Bull asks, standing in a pool of light.


End file.
